In the 2006 Census, Australians reported more than 250 different ancestries, with many people claiming two ancestries. The most common ancestry was Australian, with 7.4 million, or 37% of all people, choosing this as at least one of their ancestries. The next most popular ancestries were English (6.3 million or 32%), Irish (1.8 million or 9.1%) and Scottish (1.5 million or 7.6%), reflecting the dominant sources of migrants to Australia since European settlement. Italian, German and Chinese were the next most common ancestries.

Around 64% of Australian residents identified with only one ancestry, while 28% selected two ancestries.

Of the people who selected two ancestries, the most common combinations were English-Australian (with around 1.26 million persons), English-Irish (753,000) and English-Scottish (504,000).

Languages

The 2006 Census also recorded that almost 400 different languages were spoken in homes across Australia. Close to 79% of Australia's population spoke only English at home, a decrease from 82% in 1996.

As in 1996, the three most common languages other than English in 2006 were Italian (accounting for 1.6% of the population), Greek (1.3%) and Cantonese (1.2%). Of these, Cantonese was the only language which hadan increase in the number of speakers since 1996 (21% growth), while Italian and Greek speakers declined in number by around 16% and 7% respectively.

The recent growth of Asian languages and the decline of those from Europe in Australia reflects the recent trends in the birthplaces of Australia's overseas-born. Of Australia's main non-English languages*, Mandarin and Hindi have experienced the fastest proportional growth – both more than doubling in speakers since 1996. Conversely, German speakers declined the most in number, falling by around 24%.

Between 1996 and 2006, except for Darwin, the proportion of each capital city's non-English speakers increased. In 2006, Sydney had the largest proportion of its residents speaking non-English languages at home (around 29% or 1.2 million people), while Hobart had the smallest proportion (5.1% or 10,000 people).

*Languages with more than 50,000 speakers (who speak it when at home).

NB: The figures in this fact sheet exclude overseas visitors. Where an answer to a question has not been provided (i.e. not stated) these occurrences form a separate category in the data and therefore some percentages do not total to 100%.

Source: ABS 2006 Census.

Table 1. 2006 Census: Top 15 ancestries, Australia

Persons

Proportion of total population(a)

'000

%

Australian

7 371.8

37.1

English

6 283.6

31.6

Irish

1 803.7

9.1

Scottish

1 501.2

7.6

Italian

852.4

4.3

German

811.5

4.1

Chinese

669.9

3.4

Greek

365.2

1.8

Dutch

310.1

1.6

Indian

234.7

1.2

Lebanese

181.8

0.9

Vietnamese

173.7

0.9

Polish

163.8

0.8

New Zealander

160.7

0.8

Filipino

160.4

0.8

(a) As respondents can identify with up to two ancestries, proportions for all ancestries do not add up to 100 per cent.

Table 2.1. 2006 Census: Top ten ancestry combinations, Australia

Rank

Ancestry combination

Persons ('000)

1

English-Australian

1 263.1

2

English-Irish

753.4

3

English-Scottish

503.9

4

Australian-Scottish

278.7

5

Australian-Irish

257.3

6

English-German

241.1

7

Scottish-Irish

213.1

8

Australian-German

118.8

9

Australian-Italian

116.0

10

English-Italian

95.3

Table 2.2. 2006 Census: Top ancestry combinations, Australia

Top ancestry combinations (excluding British, Irish and Australian ancestries)

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